This invention relates to a method of, and apparatus for, manufacturing hinged-lid boxes of the type frequently called flip-top boxes, suitable for containing matches, cigarettes, pharmaceutical tablets or pills, and other goods. The invention also relates to a flip-top box made by the aforementioned method.
The so-called "flip-top" box is a well known package used widely for containing cigarettes and characterised by a container section having front, back, bottom and side panels, and a flip-top hinged lid having front, back, top and side panels. The back panel of the lid forms an integral extension of the back panel of the container section and contains a crease line to define a hinge axis. The sides of the lid taper from the front panel to the back panel of the lid, and the sides of the container section taper in a complementary manner so that when the lid is flipped open, the goods are displayed.
In order to support the lid on the container section in the closed state, a three-sided contents retainer is fitted around the inside of the front and side panels of the container section with a cut-away in the forward facing portion of the retainer through which the contents of the box can be seen. The front panel and side supports of the retainer thus project above the upper edge of the container section and are overlapped by the front and side panels of the flip-top lid when it is closed. Although reference has been made to a `container section`, the goods do in fact extend into the lid when the lid is closed.
This type of box has numerous advantages. In particular, since movement of the lid from an open to a closed position and vice versa involves a momentary resilient deformation of one or more parts of the container section, there is a substantial resistance to opening of the lid from the closed position. Moreover, the three layer construction of the sides of the box give it considerable crush resistance.
Hitherto, the use of this box construction has been limited to cigarette packing, and in this application, a collection of ten or twenty cigarettes are assembled, wrapped in foil, placed on a skillet from which the box is to be formed, a retainer is fitted over the cigarettes and the flip-top box is erected around the cigarettes by folding of the skillet. The box so formed does not require a high degree of durability since it will be discarded once the contents are used up and this will frequently involve a life of a few days or less.
Proposals have been made, for example in British Patent Specification No. 819204 and French Patent Specification No. 2,254,493 to provide a skillet, for the manufacture of cigarette packets, which has been formed in one piece, the retainer being connected to the front panel of the box by a connecting panel. The retainer is thus brought into overlapping relationship and secured to the front panel by folding along the fold lines at opposite ends of the connecting panel and causing the connecting panel to adhere to the front panel and retainer.
The way in which such a one-piece skillet is thereafter folded has not been disclosed, but it can be assumed that it is folded, by conventional cigarette packing techniques, around the assembly of cigarettes.
If however a flip top box could be made accurately and durably in a form in which it could be filled with its contents after completion of its construction, it would have wide application, and the present invention is directed to the solution of this problem.